Feral II: Wife
by IsabelleBlue
Summary: AU after X2. VictorOC. A young female feral is rescued by the X-Men. What happens when they discover she has a closer relationship to a certain Sabertooth then they'd like? Part of a series.
1. Chapter 1

**TOKEN DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING. ONLY MY OCS ARE MY OWN. THERE ARE DEPICTIONS OF RAPE AND EXTREME VIOLENCE IN THIS STORY. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT DON'T READ IT, IT'S RATED M FOR A REASON. THIS IS AU, SET AFTER X2 BUT JEAN IS STILL ALIVE. ALSO, IT WAS CONCEIVED BEFORE WOLVERINE: ORIGINS, SO LOGAN AND VICTOR ARE NOT RELATED. P.S. I PREFER TO THINK OF THIS SABERTOOTH AS LIEV SCHREIBER'S MUCH MORE AWESOME AND SEXY VERSION.**

They found her dumped on the side of the road, beaten bloody and unconscious right where Xavier had said they would. Logan couldn't help growl at the scent of multiple males coming off her as he carried her into the Blackbird so they could return to the Mansion.

Storm and Cyclops strapped in up front and started take off, while Logan buckled in still holding the girl carefully, his protective instincts fired up.

"Tell me again why we're not giving her medical attention now?" Logan growled, upset by how much fresh blood he could still smell coming off her. She was small, seemingly fragile against his bulk and he worried about her survival.

Storm answered patiently, "Because we're only minutes away and Hank is prepped and waiting in the lab."

Just then, he suddenly recognized one of the many scents he'd been picking up off this girl. He took another deep breath just to be sure and growled, his claws popping out involuntarily, "Sabertooth!"

"What?" both Scott and Ororo turned around to look at him at his shout, dismayed.

"Fucking** Victor Creed** did this! I can smell him." Wolverine continued to growl ready to rip that bastard limb from limb, even more so than usual.

"Oh, that poor girl," Storm whispered, shuddering at the thought.

Cyclops just cursed as he set the Blackbird down and let the Professor know they were back and that the pickup had been successful.

After they changed into civilian clothes, all three rescuers came down to the lab as Jean and Dr. McCoy worked on the girl, choosing sit outside in order to hear any news about her immediately. They were all a great deal more worried about her after learning just who had been involved.

Logan lifted his head from where it had been in his hands when Jean walked in, an expectant look on his face. Storm and Scott straightened as well.

Jean's heart was just breaking for this girl, she was little more than a child and to be so brutally raped and beaten . . . She shook her head, trying to focus on the task at hand. "She had multiple broken bones as well as some compound fractures, a dislocated shoulder and hip and many healing lacerations."

Everyone's face in the room whitened and Logan let out a growl at the list of injuries Jean was cataloguing. Jean took a breath before speaking again. "The good news is she is healing quickly. So quickly in fact that we think she's a feral mutant, like you, Logan. The damage is so severe that a normal human wouldn't have survived this . . . several times over." Everyone was shocked by this pronouncement. Xavier had been working on classifying types of mutants: elementals, 'paths, etc., and had discovered that while ferals like Logan, Beast and Sabertooth were not uncommon, females of their kind were extremely rare. "Hank's going to do blood work to confirm."

Logan, Scott and Ororo met each other's eyes, each thinking the same thing. She must have been truly tortured, for her to have looked so bad when they found her if she had accelerated healing.

"I agree with Logan's assumption that Sabertooth was involved in this. The Professor and I both took a look at her memories of the attack and although they are very chaotic and jumbled, he **is** in there." Logan growled again and suddenly slammed his fist into the wall, making a huge dent. Then he felt a chill go down his spine, Xavier was speaking to him mind to mind.

_'I understand you're anger, Logan. We all feel the same way, but save it for the battle to come. Once the girl is settled I want everyone in my office for a briefing.'_ Xavier spoke the last part to everyone in the room as they all nodded, eager to find Sabertooth and stop him from doing anything like this ever again.


	2. Chapter 2

Once they were all ensconced in Xavier's office, he began with all the information he had been able to gather about this girl and Sabertooth's current whereabouts. He looked around at Rogue, Storm, Cyclops, Jean, Hank, Logan, and Kurt before beginning, noting the rage and sadness on their faces.

"All right, this is what we know about her: Her name is Sophie Turner, age 20." He held up a picture of her, hardly recognizable as the battered girl they had down stairs. She was of average height but slim, delicate, with curly light reddish brown hair and big dark blue eyes. A very sweet looking, pretty face. "She is a suspected feral mutant-" he looked inquiringly at Dr. McCoy.

Hank took that as his cue to speak, "Yes, the tests came back positive. She is a female feral. We know she has advanced healing and should have advanced senses as well as speed and strength."

"No claws?" Logan growled from the corner he was lurking in.

"None that showed up on the x-ray. But there is one oddity. There is a bite mark on her shoulder that has healed but left a scar. Have you ever scarred Logan?" Hank looked inquiringly at Logan, almost certain of his answer.

"No." they could all hear in his voice how surprised he was that the girl was even capable of scarring.

"Well, maybe you could take a look at it later." A jerky nod was all he got in reply.

Xavier continued "Her parents died when she was eleven and she moved into the foster care system until she was sixteen. Then she became an emancipated minor, got her GED and put herself through college in three years, getting her bachelors at nineteen. She is now in the masters program for molecular biology at Berkeley, where she lives on campus."

Clearly this was a very bright girl, of value to both the mutant and human community alike. Rogue spoke up, "Professor? Why would Sabertooth come after this girl?"

"I don't know, my dear. As far as I can tell they have had no interaction of any kind. My only suspicion is that Magneto commanded it for some reason, although I am disheartened to think he would be behind something like this."

"Anything else, because quite frankly, I'm ready to go out there and kill this bastard right now for what he's done." Scott said angrily, unable to hold onto his frustration any longer.

"I understand exactly how you feel Scott and no I have no more information to add." He looked around the room at everyone. "Logan, I want you, Rogue and Kurt to go back to where you found her and see if you can find any trace of Sabertooth or any accomplices and see if you can get an idea of where he or they might be. Jean, Scott and Ororo will take the Blackbird to the last known location of the Brotherhood to see if you can find out if this was ordered by Magneto. Hank, I would like you to stay here to keep an eye on Sophie while I try use Cerebro to locate Sabertooth mentally."

As everyone got up to leave and begin their various tasks, Xavier motioned Logan to his side. "I would like to to make sure you get back before she awakens. You have the best understanding of who and what she is and I think you would be the best person to comfort her." All Logan could do was nod dumbly, worried for a girl whose best hope of comfort was him.


	3. Chapter 3

Sophie opened her eyes groggily, disoriented. She looked around, not recognizing the cold steel and sterile room. It looked like a hospital, not like her snug little dorm room on campus. She inhaled, testing. There were various new people smells, all of them mutants, but only one was strong enough to belong to someone still in the room. Despite the drugs she could now feel in her blood stream, she tensed, her heart racing, a fight or flight reaction triggered.

A deep voice sounded out of the dark, "It's okay, kid. I'm not gonna hurt ya."

Her eyes shot to the source, taking in the male feral mutant staring at her. Quickly her eyes catalogued the threat he presented and realized it was a big one. "What do you want?" she hissed gathering herself to spring, hoping that the drugs wouldn't slow her down to much.

Logan put his hands up, trying to keep his stance as unaggressive as possible as he answered, "Nothin'. Just trying to help ya. Do you remember what happened?"

She paused, confused by the question. Remember what? Then it hit her, all in a rush. Ten men jumping out at her, all human. Attacking her because she was a mutant. Fighting. Then, there were too many. Being beaten again and again. Raped. She had prayed for death. She let out a whimper. "Victor."

Logan slowly moved toward her wanting to comfort her but afraid to set her off. When he heard her whimper he assumed that she called **his** name out of fear and his heart went out to her. He got close enough to touch her, as she sat on the bed crying and he gradually put his arms out and around her until he was sitting there on the bed with her, rocking her as she cried.

Sophie felt more safe with this man than she had in days. Part of it was his mutancy. She'd always felt safer around mutants then humans. Throughout her life humans had hurt her a great deal more then mutants. The other part was that he reminded her of her husband, they had the same kind of rough kindness. Finally, she finished and pulled away mumbling, "Thank you."

She looked around the room again, "Where am I?"

"Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. It's in Westchester. It's Tuesday afternoon, by the way, you were out for about fifteen hours."

Suddenly something occurred to her, her heart jumped into her throat, "Where's my cell phone?"

Logan was momentarily surprised by the scent of her fear, but just assumed she had someone she need to call. "Um, sorry kid, you didn't have anything on you when we found you. Do you need to make a call?"

Glumly she answered, "I guess not." Now she was going to get it. Victor checked up on her every week and she'd been expecting him to call her Monday night. The night she'd been attacked. He was the only one with her cell phone number and she didn't have any way to reach him. He was with the Brotherhood right now and he didn't want anyone to know about her. When she didn't answer he was going to loose it and come looking for her. Not that she really minded, she could use a little comfort right now. She didn't tell any of this to the man with her though. Their relationship was a secret for a reason. She hadn't even told her friends at school, let alone a someone she'd just met.

Logan had become distracted by the traces of Creed's scent he was still getting from the girl. He'd thought Hank and Jean had bathed her but apparently not very well if she still smelled so strongly of him. He pinpointed the scent as coming from one specific place on her, her neck. He reached up and pulled the neck of the sweats they had dressed her in away from her shoulder a little and found the scar Hank had been talking about. It was the perfect imprint of Creed's teeth in the muscle between her neck and shoulder. Logan growled, pissed that he had somehow managed to mark her.

Sophie flushed when she realized what he was looking at, quickly slapping her palm to cover it and getting up off the bed. Logan assumed she was ashamed and tried to change the subject. "So, um, my name's Logan . . . Ah, Wolverine."

She turned to look at him appraisingly. So this was the 'Runt' Victor was always talking about. He didn't look so bad. "Sophie," she said as she turned around and held out her hand for a shake.

"So . . . You got anything to eat around here?" she said as she grinned and Logan couldn't help but smile back, leading the way out of the lab.


	4. Chapter 4

Later that evening, after spending most of the afternoon following Logan around, Sophie found herself in Professor Xavier's office, meeting the big man himself. They shook hands and Logan introduced her to Xavier and a large blue feral mutant named Hank McCoy or Beast.

Xavier started out by saying, "Sophie, I know you've been through a lot and I just want you to know we're here for you and want to help you in any way we can. I've already notified your school about your situation and you are excused from you're classes until further notice, so you don't need to worry about that."

She just nodded at that, touched by this man's obvious caring.

Xavier leaned forward and met her eyes seriously, "Now I know this will be hard for you but do you think you could give us some idea of what happened to you?"

"Okay," she whispered, hating to look back on it. "Um, I was walking back to the dorms when a bunch of men jumped out of the bushes at me. I tried to fight them off, but there were just to many of them and I was knocked out." she blinked back the tears that were starting to form, hating the idea of crying in front of these strangers, no matter how nice they'd been.

"When I came to I was in the woods and they were . . ." she waved her hand in the air. Xavier nodded to let her know he knew what she meant. "That's the last thing I remember before waking up here."

"Did you recognize any of them?" He was trying to get an idea of whether or not she knew Creed without having to ask her outright. Right now she was just too upset for him to be willing to press her any harder.

She just shook her head mutely, tears glistening on her face.

Xavier had to ask one more question and then he would let her go. "Do you have any idea why they attacked you?"

She looked up at him, "I assume because I'm a mutant," she said remembering all the curses and taunts about her mutancy.

Xavier leaned back, relieved to be finished. "Okay, that's all I needed to ask you. Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

Sophie grinned, ferally, "Is there anyone here I can beat up? Because that would make me feel better."

"Of course." he smiled at how similar her reaction was to a certain other mutant of his acquaintance. "Logan, will you take her down to the Danger Room and get her set up."_ ~This would be a welcome opportunity to get an idea of what a female feral mutant is capable of.~ _He mentally added.

Logan just nodded and stood up.

"Oh, before you go, Logan mentioned something about you wanting your cell phone. Sadly, we didn't find it on you or at the scene but if you need to contact anyone please feel free to use one of ours." he looked at her inquiringly as she blushed and just shook her head.

"There is one thing we were able to salvage," he said as he nodded to Beast who pulled a necklace with a single gold band on it out of his shirt pocket. She lit up at the sight of it, reaching out to take it. "Oh, thank you! I'd thought I'd lost it."

When they all looked at her strangely because of her strong reaction to what was obviously a wedding band, she used her usual lie, "Oh, it was my mother's." forgetting for a second that the men in the room were two feral mutants and one telepath.

As she walked out of the room, they all looked at one another in confusion. Xavier finally asked telepathically, ~_Why would she lie about __**that**__?~_

Both men shook their heads as Logan followed her out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Sometime later quite a crowd had gathered in the observation area of the Danger Room to watch Sophie and Logan spar.

Hank walked in, drawn by the ooohs and ahhhs of the crowd. "What is going on?"

Rogue turned away from the glass, grinning as she said, "The new girl ya'll brought in is kickin' Logan's ass."

"Really?" Hank said as he walked forward to take a look. And indeed that was what was happening. He watched as Logan took a particularly brutal kick to the side of the head and then fist across the jaw.

"Well, he's not using his claws." Bobby said in Logan's defense.

But Rogue replied with a snide, "Neither is she," before looking back toward the the two combatants.

"Ah wonder where she learned to fight." Rogue said wonderingly as the girl backflipped over Logan's head with dizzying speed and punched him in the back of the neck.

"I do not know. But she does seem very skilled, doesn't she?" Hank said in wonderment. When Sophie had said a number of men had attacked her he had assumed about four. But after seeing this he would have to increase that number to at least double that.

The two of them together were poetry in motion. It almost looked like a dance as they wove and thrust, moving around each other gracefully. Everyone groaned as she took an uppercut to the jaw. Clearly the crowd was on her side. She was quick, however, to use Logan's subsequent imbalance to her advantage and swung around him, using his body to push off of. She caught him in the back and rode him down to the ground, pulling him into a wrestling hold on the way down.

When he heard her yell, "Yield!" Hank realized that the intercom had been open this whole time and that the two combatants had just been completely silent during their deadly dance.

The crowd cheered when Logan groaned, "I give." Clearly this girl would be popular. No one at the school had ever been able to beat Logan in a straight up sparring match before. They all watched as she gave him her hand to get up and they walked off the mat together.

The next afternoon the X-Men where back in Xavier office for another briefing. Jean, Scott and Ororo were back from the Brotherhood location and tired from their night of recognizance and were hoping to report in quickly and head off to bed.

Xavier called the meeting to order. "All right, before we discuss what you've found I want to tell everyone that when Logan, Rogue and Kurt when to the scene they were unable to find any evidence or track anyone away from there. They did, however, find the location in the woods that Sophie was taken before they dumped her on the side of the road, which supports what Sophie herself has told us." Then he looked at Storm, who had been Jean and Scott's team leader. "What did you find Ororo?"

Ororo stood up and made her lecture to the whole room. "We made it to their headquarters and Jean was able to scan the minds of several people high up in the Brotherhood, including Mystique. No one was aware of any order pertaining to Sophie Turner or even knew who she was. She was not able to scan Magneto, as was to be expected, so there is a slight chance he could have ordered it and told no one else."

As she sat back down next to Kurt, Xavier said, "Well, that certainly eases my mind. I had hoped Erik would not stoop so low. What about Sabertooth?"

Jean spoke up before Storm could, "He was not there. And I was able to glean that he left the compound on Monday and no one knew where he was going or why."

"Hmm, well that seems to lend credence to the theory that he was involved. I haven't had any luck pinpointing him with Cerebro, but I will continue to try. Once we find him I want to send out a team immediately, so everyone be ready to leave at a moment's notice."

"And das Frauline, she is well?" Kurt spoke up, concern obvious in his face.

"Very well actually. All of her physical damage has healed. I spoke with her last evening, and while she is upset she is demonstrating remarkable control. Really, she seams like quite a resilient girl."

"Girl my ass," Logan could be heard to growl from his usual corner, "She's a wildcat."

When everyone looked at Wolverine in confusion, Xavier spoke up, "Ah. I believe Logan is still smarting from their sparring session last night. It was quite the talk of the school."

Jean gasped as she skimmed the truth from the minds in the room, "She **beat** you?"

Scott and Ororo gasped in surprise. No one beat Logan! Rogue laughed as she looked at Logan's shamed face, but then spoke up in his defense, "Well, he wasn't usein' his claws."

Everyone began filing from the room, still ribbing Logan. Scott could be heard to say just as the door closed, "I need to meet this girl."


	6. Chapter 6

Later the next day, Sophie was sitting on the main roof of the Mansion facing the front gates. She'd climbed up here a little over an hour ago after she'd gotten bored with her room. Exploring the mansion and grounds was out because there were just too many kids running around. She was still jumpy from the attack and she really didn't want to accidently hurt someone just because they startled her.

Who was she kidding? She was up here for another reason too. She was waiting for Victor. She knew he would be coming for her since he couldn't get a hold of her with her cell phone. She predicted he could get here anywhere from this evening to three days from now, depending on where he was and when he had tried to call her.

Quite frankly she couldn't wait. She needed to feel his strong arms around her to make her feel safe again. Logan was sweet and he tried to make her feel better. And she did . . . some. But really, she wanted her Victor.

She stiffened as she heard a creak behind her. Scenting the air, she got a whiff of cigar smoke and leather and relaxed when she realized it was Logan.

He dropped down beside her with a gruff, "Hey, kid. You doin' okay?"

Sophie sighed and kept looking out at the lawn, "Yeah, just bored."

Logan was pleased that she didn't sound depressed. When he first realized she was up on the roof he'd felt a moment of panic thinking she was contemplating suicide. Hoping to cheer her up he asked, "You wanna try kickin' my ass again? I'm onta ya now, it won't be so easy again."

She laughed and replied, her blue eyes dancing, "You were tough the first time. I just had the advantage because you weren't really trying to hurt me and I learned to fight against someone much bigger and stronger than me, so I'm used to it."

Logan perked up at the personal information, "Who was that?"

She stilled like she had said something she shouldn't have. "No one." she whispered. Sometimes she hated having to lie about Victor. But she knew it was for her own safety. And anyway they only had sixteen months left and he was out of the Brotherhood and they could be together again, permanently.

He let them sit silently for a little while before asking something he'd been wondering about. "So . . . The Professor said you're going to school for molecular biology, why's that?"

She laughed, seeing through his attempt to start a conversation, "Do you really want to know?"

He pulled a stub of a cigar out and lit it before saying seriously. "Yeah, seems like a real hard subject, so there must be a good reason for ya to study it, right?"

"You're right. I'm need that major so I can better study feral mutants." She looked at him, waiting for his reaction.

His hazel eyes met her sky blue ones. "Really? Wouldn't you just study all mutants? Are we that different?"

"Of course we are!" she began to warm to her subject. He could tell she felt strongly about this. "You could almost say we have multiple mutations, what with the enhanced senses or healing or claws, et cetera."

Logan nodded to show he understood her point.

"But that's not even the real reason we're different." she paused to emphasize her point. "We're different because we don't **think** like humans. Not wholly."

Logan sat up from his slouch, this was striking a cord in him. He watched as she became more and more animated. "Normal mutants think like normal humans, they can just become invisible, or set things on fire or whatever. We don't. We have instincts and urges and hungers that they do not have and cannot fully understand."

Just to be ornery Logan asked, "Like what?"

"Well, I can tell you that you, as a male feral, find me very physically attractive and feel very protective of me." He looked shocked at her ability to deduce his emotions. "And you've felt that way since the instant you saw me, or more accurately smelled me."

She looked over for his confirmation. He just nodded not ready to speak since he was still absorbing this. She continued, "And there was no logic behind it, was there? It was just instinct. A normal would try to rationalize it or ignore it but you . . . You just came up here to sit on the roof with me." She smiled, knowing by the look on his face that she'd gotten her point across. "That's what I mean, we don't think like they do." Their eyes met. "We're different."


	7. Chapter 7

Sophie jerked awake at the sound of alarm bells ringing. Groaning at how the shrill sound hurt her head, she rolled over and got out of bed to take a look out of her room and see what was going on. Just then, she felt the Professor in her mind. _~Sophie, the school is on alert because of an intruder. Please remain in your room until Kurt arrives. He will take you downstairs somewhere safe.~_

Unable to resist taking a peak even though she knew she should follow Xavier's orders, Sophie opened the door a crack and peaked out. Students ran back and forth along the hallway, chaos reigning. All she could deduce from from her hidden vantage was that the X-Men were all moving downstairs toward the front of the Mansion while the children were being herded toward the elevators to be taken down to the lower levels.

Just then Sophie herd a sound that she hadn't heard in months, a deep bass rumble of a roar the shook the glass in the widows of her bedroom. "Victor!" she whispered as she pivoted on her heels and rushed to the widow, looking for the source of that sound.

"Frauline?" she could hear Kurt say at her doorway, as she fumbled with the locks and threw open the widow, overjoyed to see the large figure she had spied fighting on the Mansion's front lawn.

"Sophie?" was the last thing she heard from Kurt as she put both feet on the bottom of the window and pushed off, jumping the two story distance like a swimmer from a high dive.

Storm spied her arc beautifully to the ground from her vantage point up on the roof of the mansion. Her heart leapt into her throat with fear for the girl, before she sighed with relief as she rolled several times with the impact and then leapt up and began running all in one graceful motion.

"Victor!" Sophie shouted running pell mell across the battle field that had sprung up on the front lawn. Storm, true to her name had whipped up a hell raiser, lightening, thunder and strong winds buffeting them at all sides. Sophie caught a glimpse of Scott standing to the side, a hand on his special visor, clearly waiting for his next shot. Worst of all Victor and Logan were locked in a brutal battle attacking each other with teeth and claws viciously. Needing to protect Victor from the onslaught of the entire force of the X-Man team before it could be summoned, Sophie yelled, "Stop!" as she neared the two combatants and threw herself in between their slashing forms.

Both men stopped instantly, neither wanting to hurt the fragile girl in their midst. Logan was shocked to see that as soon as they stopped swinging, Sophie turned to Sabertooth and shouted, "Victor!" in the most joyful tone he'd ever heard from her and leapt into his arms. Quite frankly he wondered if the girl had gone crazy. Then he realized that he was the one who must have lost his mind as he watched Victor Creed, the most vicious mutant he knew, nuzzle her like a tabby cat.

"You're here." she all but whimpered in his ear as he began a rumbling purr. He could tell something had happened to her, what, he didn't know, but if those X-Geeks had hurt her he would kill them all.

"What happened?" he growled, loving the feel of her slim fingers threading through his mane of hair.

Sophie just shook her head as she thrust it further into the hollow between his neck and shoulder. He continued to hold her in the palms of both hands as she wrapped her long legs around his waist and held on for dear life.

Looking over her shoulder he could see the Runt and that one-eyed bastard Cyclops slowly approaching him from two sides. Tensing, he let out a warning growl and started putting his mate down so her could step in front of her.

Logan took that opportunity to pull Sophie away from him, ignoring Sabertooth's warning growl and shouted, "Get your hands off her!" as he snapped, "What that hell!" at Sophie.

She held up both hands placatingly at the pair of them. "It's okay." she said. Neither one of them responded as they kept advancing. Logan grabbed her by the shoulder and drug her behind him thinking to protect her. Victor, taking that as an aggressive move, leapt the five or so feet separating them, intending to rip Wolverine limb from limb for touching his mate.

After seeing the look of sheer unadulterated rage on Sabertooth's face Logan had to admit he was a little relieved that Jean chose that minute to step in and catch Sabertooth mid-air with her telekinetic powers.

Sophie chose that moment to jump in front of him and complicate matters even further by shouting, "Don't! He's my **husband**!" Everyone stopped and stared at her in shock. After a moment Logan ran tired hand over his face. They needed to figure out what the hell was going on!


	8. Chapter 8

Sometime later, after Sabertooth was safely ensconced in one of the reinforced holding cells downstairs, the X-Men were gathered in Xavier's office with Sophie waiting in an next room to join them. The room was awash in voices, everyone arguing and sharing information about the fight, until finally Xavier had to hold up his hands for silence.

"I know you are all angry and confused but I believe we can get to the bottom of this situation if we all put aside our emotions for a moment." Xavier said calmly.

Cyclops shook his had and interrupted angrily, "I'm finding that very hard to do, Professor, when I just found out that we've been harboring Victor Creed's **wife** here!" There were a couple of shocked gasps from people who hadn't heard **that** particular bit of news yet.

Jean spoke up then, still unable to believe that Sabertooth even had a wife, let alone that it was a sweet young girl like Sophie. "What if this was some kind of delusion, something her mind created to help her deal with the trauma of the rape?"

Xavier sighed, almost sad that that was not the case, it certainly would have made this situation easier. "After speaking with Sophie at length I do not believe that to be the case, although I do have reservations about her ability to judge for herself how appropriate her relationship with Victor Creed is."

"So there **is** a relationship?" growled Logan from his usual corner. Today, however, he was chewing on his cigar with great frustration.

"I am afraid so. Sophie has agreed to allow me access to her mind in order to prove this to me herself. In fact, she is incredibly eager to do anything that would convince me to allow Mr. Creed freedom from his cell."

The room was thrown into an uproar again, only this time everyone one was in agreement that Sabertooth would not, under any circumstances, be released. Among the numerous voices, several could be heard to volunteer to kill him as an answer to their current problem.

Xavier held up his hands once again for quiet, "Everyone please!" He waited until silence fell. "I am going to bring Sophie in now. I would appreciate everyone holding their own council until she has explained herself and then we will see where we will go from there."

Sophie halted in her nervous pacing as Xavier's voice could be heard in her mind _~Sophie, we are ready for you now._~

She shored up her courage with a deep breathe and eased the study door open. As she walked over to the chair at Xavier's side, she took in everyone's faces. She knew they were all shocked that she and Victor were married and she just hoped they wouldn't hate her because they didn't like him.

Xavier looked at her kindly, trying to sooth her obvious nervousness. "Sophie, why don't you tell us about you're association with Sabertooth and give us any information you have on why he came here."

"Okay . . . Well, Victor wasn't here to hurt anybody." At Logan's audible only to her ears snort, she amended her explanation. "Well . . . I mean he was here to hurt people, but that was only because he thought you guys had hurt me. It really was just a big misunderstanding."

Scott could no longer contain himself. " 'A big misunderstanding!' He **raped** you!" he shouted.

"What?" Sophie said, aghast. "Victor didn't rape me! A bunch of humans did."

"Then where'd the scar come from and his scent, I could smell him all over you." Logan said, standing up from his usual slouch.

Sophie flushed and clapped her hand over the scar in question. She was uncomfortable with discussing so intimate a things, but she feared she would not be able to avoid it today. "This . . . It's just a love bite."

Hank spoke up at this, disbelief evident in his tone. "A love bite that scarred a feral mutant?"

"Oh that's not because it was deep. It's just . . . " she blew out a breath between her teeth. She would just have to tell them, no matter how much it embarrassed her. Slipping into her lecturing professor mode she tried to look at it analytically.

"It's sort of a marking thing feral mutants have. If **during** . . ." she said emphasizing the word so they would get her meaning, blushing the whole time. "one bites the other, pheromones from their mouth are deposited in the bite. The bite scars because of this, even though normally it should heal and that spot then emits the biter's scent."

"And I smelled that when we picked you up and thought he had something to do with your rape. **That**'s why I couldn't pick up any trace of his scent at the scene." Logan said finally understanding what had been bothering him about that. There should have been **some** trace of Creed; nobody was **that** good. He'd been worried for a minute.

Scott spoke up sullenly, "Alright, fine, so he didn't rape you. That doesn't excuse him from attacking the school." Several heads nodded in agreement.

Sophie blew out a breath in exasperation, "He wasn't attacking the school. He was just trying to get to me." She knew she was giving out more information than Victor would be comfortable with, but this was the only way she could think of to get them to release him. She figured he could just be mad at her later. "He calls me once a week to make sure everything's okay and when I didn't answer on Monday he probably freaked out and tracked me here thinking you guys had kidnapped me or something."

"You couldn't just call him and let him know you were alright?" Ororo asked concernedly.

She looked down at her hands, torn between trusting her new friends that she believed truly wanted to help and telling secrets that she knew Victor wouldn't want her to. "No. He contacts me not the other way around. No one can know about me, especially Magneto. So I never contact him because I have no way of knowing when he's being watched or not."

Hank spoke up, confused. "I'm sorry, but why, exactly, is Magneto not to know about you?"

Sophie looked up and grinned. "I'm a big secret because Victor's got a lot of enemies that would love to get their hands on me so they could make him do whatever they wanted, especially Magneto. See, Victor owes Magneto ten years of service and it's almost over, just sixteen months to go and he's getting desperate for a way to keep Victor around."

Scott was also confused. "What do you mean he owes him? I thought they were allies."

She shook her head. "Uh uh. Magneto did something for him with the agreement of repayment, that's why he's with the Brotherhood. In fact, Victor never really agreed with Magneto anyway, he's always said he likes what you guys are doing here a lot more."

Everyone was shocked at that pronouncement. More and more they were seeing a new side to Victor Creed, a side that many of them would never had guessed existed. The room was silent as everyone tried to reconcile the caring lover Sophie was speaking of with the vicious mutant they all knew Sabertooth to be. Finally, Rogue spoke up, "So, you're tellin' me, that you are **happily** married to Sabertooth?"

"For four years now." Sophie said proudly before she took a second to think about how that would be taken.

"You've been married since you were sixteen?!" Logan roared.

Sophie held up her hands placatingly. "Now, it's not what you think."

"Why, that's child abuse!" Jean shouted. "You could not possibly be old enough to make that kind of decision at sixteen."

Sophie stood up, unable to control her agitation at the accusation against Victor. "It was necessary. And I've never regretted it."

Jean couldn't let this line of reasoning go, she was sure Creed had to have coerced this girl in some way. "You just think that because he's convinced you of it. Left to you're own devices you would never have wanted to marry a man like that."

She jabbed her finger at Jean in anger. "Says you! It was my idea and anyway, if we hadn't been together then, I wouldn't be here to argue with you about it now."

Xavier chose this moment to speak up. "What exactly do you mean by you wouldn't be here now, my dear?"

Sophie blew out a breath and sat down, uncomfortable with how much information she was giving these people. This was her last hold out, something she had hoped she wouldn't have to share. "Look . . . Hasn't anybody wondered why there are so few female feral mutants?" She looked around at everyone, seeing their confused faces at the abrupt topic change.

"I think it has just been assumed that men are more likely to develop feral mutant powers." Hank said. Slowly he spoke again, as if he were pondering this idea for the first time. "But now that I think about it, no other type of mutation has shown a sex preference."

"Female feral mutants are just as common as males. The problem is that they are all dying in their teens, usually before they are identified as mutants at all." She could tell everyone was surprised by this information. She decided that if she was going to tell them some she might as well go all the way. "When female ferals hit their first menses, which occurs much later then normal, sixteen through eighteen, normally, they go into a kind of heat. Their bodies produce increasing amounts of an assortment of hormones that unless eased will eventually send them into cardiac arrest." Sophie paused, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. "The only thing that will even out the hormones in their body and allow them to survive is a significant amount of semen containing the corresponding hormones. Semen from a male feral mutant."

After dropping that bombshell, Sophie leaned back and tried to will her cheeks to cool. Everyone in the room was silent as they took in that insightful and incredibly embarrassing information. Growing increasingly impatient with the questioning she'd had to go through just to see her own spouse, Sophie finally had to say something. "Can I see my husband, now? You don't even have to let him out, just let me go in to him."

Xavier looked thoughtful. Eventually he said, "I see no reason you can't." He held up his hand, as voices rose in protest, although fewer then had previously. "You will be under surveillance, and from what you've said you should be perfectly safe. You understand if we are unwilling to release Mr. Creed at this time, despite your eloquent defense of him."

Sophie just nodded, eager to see her Victor again, no matter the circumstances, as she got up and began the trek downstairs.


End file.
